SDSU center Nahinu learns to be meaner

There was a conditioning drill the coaches ran in Malia Nahinu’s freshman season at Arizona, requiring the players to sprint across the court, baseline to baseline, over and over again.

It worked just fine for the quick little guards and the athletic forwards, but Nahinu was an 18-year-old center whose body was a work in progress. She was still adjusting to a 5-inch growth spurt in high school that put her at 6 feet, 6 inches tall.

And this is what Beth Burns, Nahinu’s current college coach at San Diego State, wants you to know about her: Those runs at Arizona were excruciating, but Nahinu kept doing them. The bones in her shins were literally breaking with the pounding. By that first season’s end, she would have stress fractures in both legs.

And Nahinu kept on running until they told her to stop.

“She wants to please you,” Burns was saying after a practice this week. “You tell her to run up and down the floor, she’s going to, no matter how bad it hurts.”

The desire got Nahinu through three seasons of struggling with injuries so bad she considered quitting. At best she was only 80 percent last season after spending the previous summer nursing a herniated disk in her back. But now she is healthy and expected to have an enormous impact on a talent-laden Aztecs team that is predicted to win the Mountain West for a second straight season.

With a senior trio of Nahinu, reigning conference Player of the Year Courtney Clements, and Chelsea Hopkins, No. 4 in the nation in assists last season, Burns has expectations well beyond simply getting into the NCAA Tournament, where SDSU was knocked out last season in the first round by LSU.

“We want to play not just to get in,” said Burns, last season’s MW Coach of the Year. “We want to sustain.”

In Nahinu, Burns has a weapon that a lot of other teams don’t have. “Everybody has players who can dribble, who can shoot, who can pass. But everybody doesn’t have someone who is 6-6,” Burns said. “We’ve got to use all of the positives that that brings to our table to take advantage.”

Burns’ nickname for Nahinu is “Smooth” because she seems to glide around under the basket. But it could easily describe her personality, too. She is soft-spoken and humble, and not the least bit intimidating off the court despite her size.

That makes her an extremely popular teammate, but it also means Nahinu has had to learn to be a little nastier and more aggressive on the floor. “This year I want to make it a point to be a more intimidating force in the paint, and be someone who people double team so that other people are open,” Nahinu said.

Said Burns: “She used to not be very strong mentally. We have a saying that you have to get comfortable at being uncomfortable to be successful. I would make her uncomfortable and she would shut down.

“She can be uncomfortable now and succeed. She has self-confidence. I think that is a huge difference.”

Nahinu did just about anything she wanted while scoring 1,615 points at Moreau Catholic High in the Bay Area. But playing the post in the college game was completely different. She was not accustomed to getting knocked around.

“I had to learn to like it,” she said. “For the longest time I hated being a post player. Now I really love it.”

Nahinu averaged 6.3 points and 4.2 rebounds per game last season, and the team would expect those numbers to rise significantly now that she is healthy. Burns said she would expect Nahinu to be far more integral to the offense, which should raise her assist total from the mere seven she had last year.

Over the summer, Burns told Nahinu that she believed the player had a legitimate shot to be drafted in the WNBA.

“I think that much of how she’s developed and come,” the coach said.

Nahinu worked ferociously in the offseason on the court and in the weight room with that professional goal in mind. Still, she seems flattered, almost embarrassed, by all of the attention. Being so nice still has it’s ups and downs.

“It’s a kill or be killed world,” Burns said. “You’ve got to use what you’ve got. Everybody’s not a Bam Bam. She’s not a Bam Bam. She won’t be a Bam Bam. But she’s a really good player.”